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V Gangadhar

Anatomy of an illness

My enviable record as someone who never fell ill lies shattered. I am now as vulnerable as that character in Jerome K Jerome's Three Men In A Boat who believed that he contracted all the diseases in the world. Illness is not a nice subject to write about. But when you have just recovered from an attack of malaria (second in two years) and still felt miserable and weak, no other topic comes so easily to mind.

When I went down with a severe attack of malaria last year, I was outraged. How could I, who had never been bedridden, fall a victim to the bite of a mere mosquito? But the attack was so severe that I had to be hospitalised. For someone who had always hated hospitals, it was an ordeal. The overcrowding, the filth, the uncaring doctors and nurses and the nervous tension made life miserable.

Of course, one cannot avoid certain types of illnesses, particularly during childhood --chicken pox, measles, mumps, whooping cough and so on. We were a big family, four sisters and two brothers, and it was always my sister Gomati who was accused of bringing diseases home first. She would get afflicted with these illnesses and we would catch it from her. As we grew up, we made fun of her for the ordeals she put us through. Of course, she vehemently denied that she was the major 'carrier' of diseases in the family.

My boyhood was totally free from any kind of ailments. When I was eight years or so, my elder sister, Lakshmi, went down with typhoid. There were no antibiotics in those days and typhoid took its own time and toll. For days together, she survived on barley water, orange juices and other liquids. I was a bit upset because she alone seemed entitled to orange juice, which was regarded as a luxury item. One day, I felt slightly out of sorts and the thermometer recorded my body temperature at 99 degrees, 0.5 degrees above normal. I immediately lay down and shouted, "Orange juice!" Of course, I was ticked off, but only after I received half a glass of the precious drink.

When I got married, I found that my wife had a delicate constitution and frequently complained of several unusual ailments. I nicknamed her Bhagirati Ammal, a character in a Tamil novel, Miss Janki, written by the incomparable comic writer, Devan. Bhagirati Ammal was a hypochondriac and "suffered" from a different disease every day of the week. On Monday her head ached; Tuesday, it was the turn of her joints; Wednesday, her left toe was swollen; the tummy was not all right on Thursday; backache on Friday; and indigestion on Saturday. Even God rested on Sunday. But not Bhagirati Ammal. She felt giddy on that day.

When I explained this similarity my wife, she was not amused. "One day, your turn will come," she warned me. After these bouts of malaria, I wonder if it has finally arrived.

I may have avoided illnesses during my younger days, but it appeared that I deliberately courted injuries. I suffered a new injury every day -- falling down while playing, dashing against some hard object, getting hurt while playing cricket, tripping over the skipping rope, falling from trees and so on.

My mother complained that I singlehandedly exhausted our stocks of tincture iodine and rolls of bandages. "Why don't you do things with your eyes open?" she would grumble. "If I did that," was my flippant reply, "I would hurt my eyes." My legs and arms were covered with wounds and scars and the family named me Pazhuvettarayar, a character from one of Kalki's novels. Pazhuvettarayar was a grizzled warrior whose body was covered with battle scars. I found the comparison quite flattering.

I admit that, in my working career, I often 'fell ill'. This happened more often after the live telecasts of cricket matches began. Being passionately devoted to cricket, it was natural that I had to stay at home and watch the game. 'Sick leave' was a big boon and my wife was often amused at the kinds of illnesses I 'suffered' while reporting sick to the office. Jarring the leg while starting the scooter, stepping into a ditch and twisting an ankle, slipping down the stairs and hurting my back.... Oh, I admit I was quite creative and hoped I convinced my bosses. No one questioned my absences and denied me leave.

Illustration: Dominic Xavier